Social Hallucinations

Social(istic) Media or The Rise of the New Capitalism?

From now and then, there are voices talking about the digital media and the possibilities they bring - the driving force behind the new socialism era. But the question is whether the possibilities created by the digital media make socialism possible, or whether what we see is the rise of the new capitalism.

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Socialism (latin societas - community) is the ambiguous term, referring to attempts to reduce social inequality and the spread of social services, treatment or management of social control through state institutions, local government, corporation or cooperative). What's common for various types of socialism is partial or total rejection of  the idea of capitalist free market, the restriction of private property and promotion of the idea of social justice. The aim was to build a socialistic society without poverty, where market forces are not the primary mechanism for distribution of wealth and where the functioning of society is based on common ownership, mutual cooperation and altruism. Beautiful idea but never proved to work (or fail - as it is not compatible with human nature). We are herd animals, but every herd needs the leader and clearly defined roles to ensure the proper functioning and survival of the group.

The whole problem with socialism is that the idea of socialism looks good on paper:

You have two cows. The government takes them and puts in the cowshed with other cows. You have to look after all the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

Image by publicenergy via Flickr

Then you have the real socialism (which I experienced and would never recommend to anyone as one of the most humiliating systems to an individual and humanity):

You have two cows. The government takes them and puts in the cowshed with other cows that is taken care of by a former poultry farmer. You have to deal with the chickens, which the government took away from the farmers who are in charge of cowsheds. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as law allows, not as much as you need.

Third option is the national socialism - total exploitation, mean capitalism in disguise:

You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to care for them and sells you the milk with the flag state.

Sharing, cooperation and collaboration that are characteristic for the social media aren't quite working in the socialism, because there are always institutions watching and controlling the sharing or collaboration and trying to regulate those with laws. Maybe not a bad idea, but where regulations and power are involved, the inequalities usually emerge.
Of course there are also some positive sides in socialism, because it focuses on the common good but I can't see its chances to thrive in the world where people value their privacy and right to property. We are too independent and focused on our own success and own profits, driven by our needs. The value is YOU. Youniverse & Meritocracy are what drives the digital media evolution.

What we observe today is the rise of the new networked capitalism with intellect as the form of social capital that increases with use and the new digital opportunities are facilitators that drive the intellect growth. The value of the corporations in the new capitalism era - cognitive capitalism - comes from their ability to create new communication tools (Google), connect people (Facebook, Twitter), etc. Personal drivers as taste, creativity plays a huge role in the production process (Nike ID, Aston Martin). The property rights in relation to intellectual property also dramatically change (Napster).

In the industrial capitalism machines sucked workers in, depersonalized and automatized work, today computers / software sucked our knowledge, mashed it up and customized it getting it available and usable / reusable at every click. The question is not longer how much you produce but how much you manage to seed. The more you seed the more growth you create. What justify the existence and enhances the power of our ideas are their ability to spread and inseminate other minds (self-promotion happens to be quite effective insemination technique when used right) - twitter, blogs etc. being the tools helping on the way. It means social media has nothing to do with socialism except first 6 letters, they are the new capitalistic means of production and seeding. The question whether they contribute to the common wealth or satisfy egoistic needs and ambitions, I will leave open for now...

Image by diankarl*www.diankarlina.com* via Flickr

Sources:

Capitalisme cognitif (Le):nouvelle grande transformation, Moulier Boutang Yann

The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online, Wired

World Map of Social Networks

The very fresh visualization of the social networks across the world (June 2009). Denmark and the rest of Scandinavian region are definitely dominated by Facebook users, as the most of the European countries. However I think it is interesting some countries in Europe didn't adapt Facebook as much. Are the cultural differences, language barrier, usability ...or something completely different.

 

Are you the new jumbo shrimp?

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"People heading up social media initiatives with almost zero online footprint is the new jumbo shrimp" (David Armano)

The way we work with social media needs to be professionalized. The more serious and results driven approach is needed. Social media aren't about easy solution that you can put on your marketing & media plan and check it as "done". Facebook pages driven by "LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT ME!" strategy using the available place and attention to talk about the mere product can't be the standard for communication with people via social media. It is like placing wings on the car in order to create the new type of flying vehicle.

It ain't going to work. There are no quick copy&paste solutions. If you are looking for "cheap and easy way to push your message", social media shouldn't be your choice.

"Social media is like a pair of shorts. Hip. Cool. But not suited for all occasions ;)" (@benkunz)

It may be social media aren't for you cause you are not ready.
If you want to work with social, start with listening and understanding who your people (aka consumers) are, what do they like, need, what drives them (I keep on repeating myself over and over again, but drivers behind human behavior are the key to creating meaningful and effective communication) and what you can do for them to satisfy their needs & fuel their motivations. Then find out what's your goal, what do you want to achieve. What is your success criteria, your ROI and how are you going to measure it. And finally how the social media fit with the rest of your brand strategy (social media aren't stand alone)? Do you communicate towards the common goals via mainstream media and social media?
Don't be too quick to create Facebook pages and Twitter accounts without ever considering how and why are you going to use them.  There is the need to cut the crap about the successful Facebook cases (usually produced by people who call themselves social media experts):

XXX:  "we have great Facebook case!
YYY: "What case? Can you tell me more about it?"
XXX: "Yes, we have 1500 fans! It is great!"
YYY: "Sounds great! What were your objectives?"
XXX: "Er, er...what do you mean, we have 1500 fans!!"

You can't measure the success without knowing what you wanted to achieve. It is like deciding to take a part in the marathon, getting the t-shirt with number, meeting at the start and never start running. Making up your mind to run, doesn't make you a runner. It is about training and commitment.

We need to stop thinking about social media as silos otherwise we produce just spam. Nobody wants to be spammed. We need more long-term social and sustainable ideas that will make a difference for people out there and then also for you and your brand.
I made myself a couple social media mistakes but I never called them "great cases", I learned from them and gained deeper understanding of how to act out there where social norms and people rule.
You doesn't need to get it right from the start. It may take a few tests, some failures but with a right dose of dedication, right insights and truly social approach and ideas, you will make it. Amen.

The Marketing Capability: The Future is Digital

"In order for our brand to be relevant in the future, we gotta live digitally... with our communication and the products we sell. And the brands that figure this out are the brands that will succeed in the future."

From the past to the future Best Buy CMO Barry Judge tells the story of how Best Buy's Marketing Capability talks (and listens) to its customers.

Is Talk Cheap?

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According to a recent research of Shyam Gopinath, Jacquelyn Thomas and Lakshman Krishnamurthi, there is a measurable connection between what is being said about a product in online posts and real-time customer behavior. Research showed that if you ask people what’s most important to them in evaluating a product, they say, ‘What other people like me say about it.’ Meaning that that a relatively small group of people in online communities can have a substantial influence on purchase decisions. What is crucial for brands is to track the conversations happening online, as understanding people's attitudes towards your products give you the chance to react accordingly and implement necessary changes. It makes online conversations to be your focus group on steroids, wisdom of the crowds delivering you valuable inisghts that can fuel your product strategies.

“An Internet-armed consumer can become your greatest asset or your worst nightmare.”

Read more here on Kellogg Insight website

Is Web 2.0 Fragmented?

We all remeber the picture that showed how fragmented Web 2.0 we are living in. Plenty of start-ups, companies, tools, applications, communities - all designed for people. The picture gave many headache, how on earth one could deal and reach to people through so many channels, how to decide which is better and which will survive as the hippest and most popular platform users decided to choose.

3 years passed and the picture changed. Some companies suffered from the natural death, some were aquired and died. Suddenly the world of Web 2.0 doesn't seem so complex as Web 2.0 is like everything else the subject of the laws of nature.

A pink cross means that the company is dead now.

Green circles mark companies that got acquired.

A cross and circle mark companies that were acquired but still closed shop.

Two greens circles means that the company was acquired twice in the same period.

via Meish

Photo credit Meg Picard& Stabilo Boss

Danish Active Facebook Users

Denmark has the proud 6th place on the ranking over countries and its Facebook active users with 2.1 mil. Facebookers. The growth within the last 3 months isn't quite impressive when compared to other countries, but you must take into consideration that it is already 40% of Danish population is on Facebook which is pretty impressive.

You can find more information on the demographic trends on Facebook.

Facebook Demographic Trends

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via O'Reilly Radar

Connected Silos

Online vs. offline, digital vs. analog - two different and opposite elements of the communication world. The media thinking is stigmatized by dualism that makes us perceive and understand the world as being divided into two categories that can't connect, but just exist one next to another divided by a silent wall of the silo thinking. Silos are easy to control and manage. Silos allows the regime of truth and can't surprise. When something came in, something must come out at the other end. But digital is not a silo. Every media have digital component and can be connected one with another.

1+1 =3

Connected silos that can communicate and connect online with offline reality creating the new immerse experiences. Two different elements that put together, create the new reality. The connected silos aren't the humans' extension they create the new dynamic structure, which we become a part of.

Does it exist, one may ask? See yourself.

I Belong therefore I Am

Image by michael.heiss via Flickr

The need for belonging is one the most powerful needs we share. Being with others people, being social is what our nature demands to function. Some wise-men even claimed that the secret of a good life lies in the harmony between social and personal feelings.
We are herd species and we want to belong something bigger than us. Danes proved it when Anders Colding-Jørgensen Internet psychologist from the University of Copenhagen made an experiment on Facebook. He created a group called 'No to demolition of Stork Fountain' (Storkespringvandet - fountain in Copenhagen). There was nothing strange in it, except the fact that no one wanted to demolish the fountain.
He sent invitation to the group to all his approx. 120 Facebook friends with a message that there was an experiment and asked them to join in. First, the group began to grow quietly. On the second day was reached small 300 members. Then went the stronger and after a little week, reached the 10,000 members. The group has around 25,000 members and is growing fairly stable with approximately 2 members in a minute!

Despite the fake cause, there were 25.000 people who joined and were against something what wasn't suppose to happen. The conclusion - the people didn't join the group to protest against the demolition of the fountain, they joined to be a part of something bigger than them, something that connected them with other people and gave them feeling of joint cause and belonging. This the same as with the groups that protest against new FB layouts. It is not about layout, it is about being part of something bigger than ourselves.

Belonging, being part of something bigger is the one of the most powerful needs you need to consider while working on your digital strategy.

PS. FB group changed its name to "I love Stork fountain" after experiment was done. And it has now over 27.000 users.

120 - Dunbar's Number

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Update on Dunbars Number

Social media may get us more connected but they still haven't made us increase the size of our social network. Social media may create a huge potential but the neocortex is still the limit.

Facebook inhouse sociologist Cameron Marlow crunched a few numbers to test Dunbar's thesis and he found out that despite the possibilities and accessibiity, the circle of our interactions is relatively small and stable.

We are not afraid of intimacy at least, as we have no problems with streaming our lived through updates, photos to broad audience, but we are not keen on investing in creating more meaningful interactions.
I wonder whether we don't use the whole potential social media are giving us because we can't process it or rather cause aren't interested in interacting with too many people.

Read the whole article on The Economist - Primates on Facebook

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Do you recall Dunbar's number that describes the the number of people with whom one can maintain social relationships: knows who each person is and how that person relates to others. Dunbar's number is 150. It is interesting to see the number of friends average user has on Facebook.

Average user has 120 friends on Facebook.

It is defintely below 150 . Not everyone is Alpha Friender. Some are just use social networks to maintain and extend their offline relationships.

Find more Facebook statistics here.

Dissolving the Meaning

I've been going through oceans of fluff written by social media experts. 5 tips how to... 10 advice on how not to do...etc.
Many social media experts are on their quest to rule the world the way mass media did and still do. Social media experts claim the right to be legislators and impose us values. Their advice is becoming a contemporary myth, telling us what the best behavior is. Their efforts focus on convincing the world they say the truth. They are not neutral. They don't create the meaning for the social media. They make the meaning disappear, they dissolve the meaning of the communication facilitated by social media.
Communication that is impossible to reject, because it is the context and the background of contemporary times. Communication that teaches us about ourselves and our reality. If social media disappeared suddenly, we would feel like abandoned on the desert island...

Photo by Ahmed

Sociology and Marketing

"Sociology and marketing are on a collision course." - says Armano

Sociology and marketing should never be separated. Marketing is about creating the value for people and making it accessibImage by Donna Cymek via Flickrle. It is hard to create and spread it without understanding human relations. This is not about focus groups or media, it is about real life observations and digging into human nature and nature of interactions. Social media and the digital technology are just enhancers of social behavior. We people are just keep talking and express ourselves and our opinions, this time powered by technology that makes it loud wider and allows us to reach more people. The motivations remain the same as BSM (before social media) - belonging and conviviality, to mention two most relevant drivers.

But *beware the common sense thinking* when applying sociology into your marketing efforts.

'The Common Sense Sociology'

Internet is infested with social media experts who apply "the common sense sociology" to explain and consult on social behavior. There are dangers of the common sense wisdoms that lead to blurring the reality and taking the wrong decisions based on the wrong assumptions.

"The common senImage by Compound Eye via Flickrse sociology" 3 mistakes:

1. Presumption that we know the social reality because we live in it, and on the basis of our experience we take for granted certain social relations and social behavior. There is an internal limitation stopping us from making the right judgments - many of our social experiences aren't recorded by our awareness thus they are not included when making judgments. Besides our experience is in most cases limited to a single group of society. We take those limited experiences and create oversimplified theories for the whole society.

2. We believe that the research or study we are working on is always linked directly with practical objectives and we measure the reality in relation to the norms that we use to describe what is desirable or undesirable.

3. Assumption that each group of social facts may be considered theoretically and practically in isolation from the rest of the life of society. Despite it is our mantra, we forget about it when talking about social behavior or social relations - Everything is connected!

As a result we can lots of bullshit said around. Lots of so called experts who mess in the heads of uncritical sheeps.

The good example of such an ignorance and the usage of the common sense science was the discussion on Twitter authority where Loic Le Meur and Michael Arrington demonstrated the lack of understanding for basic terms like authority and social relations linked to those. Authority for those gentlemen is the measure of the number of followers. What a misjudgment and oversimplification of social interactions based on the power of authority. There is a huge difference between authority and popularity (I think the whole discussion about the number of followers is referring to the latter one). Applying the number of followers equals authority logic would mean Britney Spears is a heck of an authority! (BTW she has almost 13.000 followers, gee it must be some pearls of wisdom on her profile).
Majority the social media experts are just popular through self-promotion. There are only a few who are credible experts. The difference comes from professionalism, truthfulness, trustworthiness and impartiality.
We need to be more careful and fight for professionalizing in the field to avoid being drifted away by "the common sense science" and tempted with the easy solutions based on vague theories build solely on one person experience: 'I did it this way, it worked, so it must be true for everyone and everything else.' This way of thinking is just the reproduction of the existing stats quo of the cultural structures driven by a great army consisting of the people who do not get it, but have the right to vote.
If we are here to make change we need to keep on being clever and avoid those 3 mistakes of the applying common sense thinking into any social science.

Drawing by gapingvoid

Tweetsgiving Shows Social in Action

Tweetsgiving is a fantastic initiative not only  collecting money for a good cause but also given a good example to companies how to use social media.

"Tweetsgiving is a Twitter celebration of gratitude and giving created by Epic Change, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. The project aims to demonstrate the power of the social web by raising $10,000 in 48 hours to build a classroom in Tanzania.

TweetsGiving will be held from Tuesday, 11.25.08 (12pm EST) to Thursday, 11.27.08 (12pm EST)."

The formula is simple:

tweeting - 48 hours - 10.000 USD - A classroom in Tanzania...thankfulness.

It is about finding the cause, and the motivators that will make people die to contribute, than make it accessible and conveninent to contribute...bam! It works. 63% of the expected sum was collected so far!

Motrin Moms Storm

This commercial caused a lot of controversy amongst moms. No wonder, a good example of lack of understanding for your target group. Pretty basic. I wonder who got an idea to tell moms: "wearing a baby sucks" or "it can hurt being a mom" and expected nothing would happen.

After the storm caused by mad mom began on the Internet, site went down and when it finally got back, some official message appeared, with so called "sincere apology"

You can find the whole story summed on Dave Armano's blog.

And this is response from one of moms, who didn't agree with Motrin's message to moms community.

This an example and good lesson for all brands that it is getting harder and harder for brands to get away with reckless decisions that consumers don't approve. Such powerful consumer's response can be started by anyone...

advertising, social media, Motrin Moms, Motrin